This website stores cookies on your computer. These cookies are used to collect information about how you interact with our website and allow us to remember your browser. We use this information to improve and customize your browsing experience, for analytics and metrics about our visitors both on this website and other media, and for marketing purposes. By using this website, you accept and agree to be bound by UVic’s Terms of Use for web and social media privacy.  If you do not agree to the above, you can configure your browser’s setting to “do not track.”

Skip to main content
People Departments Maps Buildings Rooms A-Z
University
of Victoria
Apply Library
Sign in Online tools Sign out
Faculty of Health

Research Spotlight with Erica Woodin

February 04, 2026

Erica Woodin
Erica Woodin.

We hear a lot about unhealthy relationships, but what makes a romantic relationship healthy? Professor Erica Woodin, director of Clinical Psychology at the University of Victoria, has spent her career devising interventions that support healthy relationships. Woodin is an affiliate with the Canadian Institute for Substance Use Research and the Island Health Authority, and a registered clinical psychologist. She is the director of the Healthy Relationships Lab, where she and her students focus on the intersections between harmful relationship behaviours, substance use, and mental health concerns, as well as the effectiveness of prevention and treatment programs to improve couple wellbeing.

What drew you to study healthy relationships?  

I did my undergrad studies at the University of Washington, in Seattle, where there is a very famous relationship psychologist, Dr. John Gottman, who ran the Love Lab. In his career, he has been interested in how couples thrive. As a young person not even in a committed relationship at that point, it was fascinating to see how to understand relationships, how to communicate, how to predict which relationships will do well and which will end in divorce.

During my time in his lab, we started doing weekend marriage workshops with the idea that you could help couples who were struggling to develop better communication skills. One of the things I noticed was that we were choosing couples that were moderately distressed. We were excluding couples with intimate partner violence, substance use, and more concerning issues where they wouldn’t get enough support during the workshops. These are some of the couples that need the most help but aren’t being served by the existing resources out there. For graduate studies, I did my training at Stony Brook University in New York, thinking about how to support couples experiencing high-level concerns, such as heavy substance use and intimate partner violence.

I see myself as spanning these two areas. I’m interested in the missing middle ground, which involves preventing problems from escalating, providing education, informing people about healthy communication and strategies to manage conflict more effectively, and how to support them if they have substance use or mental health issues.

You’ve researched a lot about parenthood, specifically the transition to parenthood. Can you tell us more about why you’ve focused on this area of research?

The transition to parenthood is a time where couples are navigating a lot of stress and challenges but are also very motivated to create a good environment for their children. In some of my earlier work, which I began in 2008, I followed 100 couples in the community expecting their first baby through the first four years of parenthood. We were trying to understand how couples navigate the transition to parenthood and have published papers on this topic.

For instance, we found that couples experiencing more stress during early parenthood experienced more verbal aggression, such as yelling and name calling, and that one reason for that may be that highly stressed couples reported more hostile attributions, which is thinking about your partner in a more negative light.

As another example, we found that couples with coercive controlling behaviours, which can include monitoring or putting down their partners, had more mental health and substance use problems, were less confident and effective parents, and had children with more behaviour problems. What these findings tell us is that couples who struggle to cope with the demands of early parenthood have more difficulty communicating effectively with their partners and that these challenges impact family wellbeing.

You’re working on a new study. Can you tell us more about it?

We recently completed the Expectant Couple Checkup study. This is a program designed for high-conflict couples expecting their first baby. They are the “missing middle” of couples, not experiencing severe levels of violence, but quite a lot of psychological aggression, such as yelling and insulting, and even occasional physical aggression such as pushing or shoving. We developed an intervention in which each couple first completed surveys and an interview about how they see their relationship. A study therapist then met with each partner individually and provided them feedback on various aspects of their relationship, including their communication behaviour. We provided this feedback using a technique called motivational interviewing that supports individuals to think about what they might want to do differently in their relationship after they become parents.

We are just beginning to analyze that data, and we have found that couples in the control group who didn’t receive the intervention reported increasing coercive controlling behaviours in the first eight months of parenthood. Our intervention group did not experience these increases. The findings are quite promising and suggest that this type of intervention might buffer couples from experiencing drops in relationship functioning during early parenthood. Next, I’ll be applying for grant funding this summer to propose a larger version of this study.

Valentine’s Day is approaching. What advice could you give people around fostering healthy romantic relationships?

This is a great question. I do think it important to choose a partner carefully. Is this someone with whom you can speak openly and honestly, do you share the same values, and do you handle stress well together as a couple? Especially if you are afraid of your partner or feel controlled by them, these are warning signs to develop a plan with your support network to leave the relationship safely.

At the same time, there are absolutely steps couples can take to improve their relationships. Spending quality time together (no phones!), talking about hopes and dreams for the relationship, and finding ways to express appreciation can all make a big difference. Also, if conflict is getting out of control, agree to take a “time out” until you are both ready to talk calmly. Just make sure to decide on a time to come back to the topic so that your problems don’t fester.

At the end of the day, putting in the work to build a strong relationship is worth it!